Eyes Wide Shut
by EndoplasmicPanda
Summary: Nagato acted in desperation. Konan acted in haste. Now, with an unwanted gift and his world on the verge of war, Naruto must open his eyes. (An attempt at a better Rinnegan!Naruto fic. Canon up until the Pein arc. NOT NarutoxKonan.)
1. House of Cards

_*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*_

* * *

 **Eyes Wide Shut**

 **Chapter 1 - House of Cards**

* * *

One moment he was awake, and then he wasn't.

The room spun, _twisted_ , and the floor came up to meet him in a soundless rush. His world narrowed to a pinhole – shrunk down to a splotch. He tried to move, but his limbs were jelly; he tried to speak, but his tongue was dry and stiff and felt like steel.

Adrenaline was one hell of a drug, Naruto thought, as he crumpled to the floor. Although having the Nine-Tailed Fox almost break free of your body certainly couldn't have helped, either.

He pushed, strained, _fought_ to raise his head enough to look up again. He saw, in the haze of semi-consciousness, the way Nagato's hands shook and quivered, and he watched Konan's eyes widen as she followed the Akatsuki leader's final movements.

He knew.

Somehow, Naruto knew.

Nagato would not be making it out alive.

Naruto was awake, but only just. He clung to the light, hoping from some faraway place in his mind that he would have the energy to get up and make that one final push, to right the wrongs they both had committed. He had made his case – fought Nagato with _words_ and not fists, and he had won.

But part of him - the worrisome, paranoid part of him that tended to keep him alive in times of life-threatening danger - was rumbling in his ears, nearly louder than the dull hum that silenced everything else and left him numb. And that alone set him on edge.

Naruto was awake, and then he wasn't.

And when he faded from reality, finally dropping from the plane of the conscious and disappearing into the unknown, he heard something, _thought_ he heard something that made his stomach churn and his heart nearly stop.

"Give him my eyes."

* * *

Konan was not an emotional woman.

She was what she was, and she left it at that. Others would describe her as calm, collected, and calculating – but Konan herself preferred the term… _pragmatic_. She was the emotional backbone of the Akatsuki; something that wasn't so much needed as it was missed when it was gone.

But she was more than that, beneath the surface. Konan was above all else an older sister – perhaps not by blood, but certainly by circumstance.

She and Nagato had lived through some of the most tumultuous years in the history of the Hidden Rain. Some (if not most) was their doing, of course, but as Nagato always qualified – it was for the greater good. For peace, and for an end to hostilities.

She'd never particularly _liked_ the idea of a 'war to end all wars', if she was honest, but Nagato was determined.

She had made a promise.

And so Konan found herself utterly dumbfounded at the conversation unfolding before her - between a boy that reminded her _so much of Yahiko it hurt_ and a Nagato she hadn't seen in over half a decade.

"We shared the same sensei, Nagato," Naruto said, conviction in his eyes. He held a worn book in his hands, clutched tightly between white-knuckled fists. "We had the same destiny in the end. And… I really think we have the same goals in mind. I'm asking you to trust me."

"Naruto Uzumaki," Nagato said, his voice ragged and raspy from his frail state. "You are something else entirely."

He paused, took a struggled breath, and groaned in pain. "I have decided… to lay my trust in you after all."

His walking pedestal hissed beneath him, and with a series of rhythmic clicking noises, Nagato's arms were freed from the confines of the chair.

"I spent my entire life living as though I was a god," Nagato breathed. "As though I was the one the great Toad Sage foresaw all those years ago." He raised his palms together, hands shaking uncontrollably, but his eyes were sharp and determined. "Perhaps… _you_ are the one the prophecy spoke of."

Konan watched as Nagato began to press his hands together, and a bead of anxiety welled up within her.

She recognized that jutsu.

"Nagato! What are you—"

"This is for the best," Nagato said, eyes narrowed and mouth cinched into a tight line. "I cannot correct the many sins I have committed over the years, but… but at least I can fix this one."

He clapped his hands together.

"Rinne Tensei," Nagato whispered, and he began to glow.

She heard the sound of flesh hitting earth, and turned just in time to see Naruto crumple to the floor before them, eyes threatening to roll into the back of his head.

"Nagato, what are you doing," Konan breathed, and she moved toward him like a specter. "Please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing."

"As… I said," Nagato said, shaking. "I… must do this, Konan."

She felt tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, blurring and distorting her vision like a kaleidoscope of emotion and confusion and _fear._

"No, Nagato," she said, moving in front of him, her voice unsteady but resolute. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides from underneath the long sleeves of her cloak, and took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself. "I can't… I can't lose you too."

The ground began to rumble and shake, like a great force was erupting from out of the dirt around them. Nagato wheezed in pain, his eyes wide and his breathing heavy, but he kept his fists firmly locked together.

"Nagato, _please_ ," Konan said, nearly begging. "What about the Hidden Rain?" She paused, biting her lip. "What about your dream? What about _Yahiko's_ dream?"

"Don't you see?" Nagato said, voice a weak whisper, eyes boring into Naruto. His smile was faraway and reminiscent; _happy_. " _He_ is that dream."

He lurched in his chair, and blood came spewing up from his throat. He coughed, hacked until his lungs were free enough again for him to speak further, then turned his shaky head towards Konan.

"I'm going to die," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Konan's breath hitched when she realized it _was_.

"Nagato—"

"When I die," he said, "I want you to give him my eyes."

Time froze.

"What?" Konan breathed.

"Give him my eyes," Nagato said.

Naruto grunted on the floor, trying to force himself conscious, before he fell forward, bent and contorted over himself.

"Nagato, those are your legacy," Konan said. "They're _you._ Why… why would you give this boy something so powerful?" She took another hesitant step forward. "Do you really believe in him that much?"

"Because he is the Child of Prophecy, I can see it now," Nagato breathed out, the green sheen surrounding his skin starting to pale. "He is the rightful owner of the eyes. They were never mine to start."

"But Madara—"

"Madara already needs…" Nagato paused, and wheezed as he spat more blood up across the front of his pedestal. His eyes had begun to bleed, thin strips of black-as-night blood trailing down his face and over the curves of his lips. "Madara already needs the Nine-Tails."

"Are you really so hasty to put all your eggs in one basket?"

"It's the right thing," Nagato said, words slurring together, "to do."

The light around him flickered out like someone had flipped a switch, and he fell forward, lifeless.

Konan moved forward and grasped Nagato's shoulders as he collapsed – _God, he was so light_ – and she blinked once, twice to fight off the tears. Damn her sensibilities, she thought, gritting her teeth. Nagato was a walking corpse – and had been for many months ever since Madara had begun to wage his war. She wasn't fooling herself by thinking otherwise.

She fought back the bubble of anger, of _rage,_ as she held onto the cooling body of her childhood friend.

Her _brother_.

A ripple of chakra, like a bubble bursting in a faraway place, washed over the horizon and Konan was thrown from her reverie.

Nagato's final jutsu had worked. She could feel it under her skin – that overwhelming feeling of _life_ stretching over the forest. It was warm, and comforting, and oh so bittersweet.

She turned, looking down at the boy splayed out on the earth before her. He was battered, and bruised, and slightly charred in a few places (the Nine-Tails, no doubt) – but he was in once piece.

He had beaten the Six Paths of Pein.

She reached out and picked up the book that was cast aside in the dirt, Naruto's outstretched hand seeming to reach for it even in his unconscious state. She dusted off the cover, reading the fine kanji carved into the leather binding, and sighed.

She was going to have to do it. She knew that. It was Nagato's last rite – his last request.

Konan crouched onto her knees, her Akatsuki garb protesting as she stretched the fabric. She took a pair of manicured fingernails and pulled open one of the blond boy's eyelids, frowning.

Sharp blue, almost shining in the darkness of her paper tree, stared back up at her, glazed and unfocused.

She stood, walked back to Nagato, did the same with his eyes.

Konan wasn't a medic nin. She had enough field experience to suture a wound or perhaps sew up a lengthy gash, but that was the extent of it. To make matters worse, the most precise tool she had on her was a single kunai – tucked underneath her robes and rarely used outside of training, if ever at all.

She bit her lip, looked down at her hand.

Shards of paper, thin as razors and layered thick, peeled off from her skin at her command. An idea sparked in her mind.

No sooner had Konan began to morph a sheet of paper into a narrow blade did she sense a pulse – a flicker of chakra not too far from where she was.

Someone was approaching.

"Shit," she breathed to herself, furrowing her brow. She was going to have to make this quick.

She watched as two sheets of paper slid their way across the room, and began to work their magic across Nagato's face. The iron-sweet smell of fresh blood washed over the small cavern, and Konan took a deep breath, focusing on her chakra control, twitching her fingers as the tools did their job. She felt a bead of sweat work its way down her cheek, dripping down her face, but she paid it no mind.

Another flicker of chakra – this time far closer. They were triangulating her position.

Konan huffed in irritation, biting her lip. "Come on," she muttered. The tools finished and Konan let out a sigh of relief, before she turned her attention to Naruto.

She watched the way his chest rose and fell, and the way his chin drooped over an arm that had landed beneath him when he collapsed.

He was alive. Tired, for certain, but alive.

"I truly hope you remain unconscious," Konan said, molding another pair of fresh blades from a few sheets of paper on her shoulder.

She made quick work of Naruto's eyes, watching the way the tools moved and swayed and sawed. The blood came as freely as it had with Nagato, but she paid it no mind, only resting when the job was done.

She sighed, pulling open the boy's lids with her bloodied fingers and gently prying his severed eyes out as quickly as she could. They sat in her palm, bloody but intact, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Konan walked back to Nagato, and did the same with his. She marveled at the way the purple stripes completely wrapped themselves around his eyes, making them look more like marbles than anything else.

She heard voices coming from outside, and she frowned, brushing her Akatsuki cloak aside as she moved back to Naruto.

"I hope you knew what you're doing, Nagato," Konan whispered, as she slid his Rinnegan eyes into Naruto's face.

It would have to do – she knew no medical jutsu, but she remembered seeing something about one of the boy's teammates being the apprentice of Tsunade. Certainly she would be able to reconnect his optical nerve and heal the damage from her rough "surgery".

She looked down at her hands again, looked down at the pair of white-rimmed blue eyes that still sat between her fingertips. She was unsure of what to do with them at that point – they were simply eyes, after all.

"Over here!" a voice called from outside.

Konan growled under her breath in frustration, and rose to her feet. "Good luck, Naruto Uzumaki," she said, steeling herself.

It wasn't until many hours later, after she had reclaimed the body of Yahiko from among the dead Peins and returned to the Hidden Rain with both of her deceased teammates in tow, that Konan finally let herself cry.

* * *

He found him lying in the dirt, propped up by one hand and bleeding from his face.

Kakashi leaned over Naruto as he cradled an arm that didn't hurt anymore _technically_ , but the phantom pain was strange and confusing and he couldn't get over the fact it had been completely crushed under a mountain of rubble less than fifteen minutes earlier.

He stretched his fingers, shook his hand, and then leaned down to prod at the boy's shoulder. "Hey. Naruto."

Naruto didn't budge.

Kakashi frowned underneath his mask, lowering himself onto one knee and carefully inspecting the boy's body for anything strange or alarming. He checked Naruto's pulse, and found it thumping along at a pleasant and lazy pace underneath his finger.

"Just unconscious, hmm?" Kakashi said, smiling a little. "Well, I'd say a little rest is more than well deserved."

He shifted Naruto on the ground in an effort to free his other hand. An old leather-bound book, covered in dirt and blood and soot, was tucked underneath his arm, as if it had been put there long after Naruto had passed out. Kakashi frowned, and pulled it away with a gentle tug.

"'Tales of an Utterly Gutsy Shinobi'," Kakashi read aloud with a murmur, turning the novel over in his hands. "I haven't seen a copy of this around in years."

He smiled again, and tucked the book into his kunai pouch with a gentleness he reserved for very few things in the world.

Naruto grunted beneath him, and Kakashi jumped at the sound. His eyelids were pressed together like vices – like he was having a particularly bad dream.

"Naruto?"

He grimaced when he traced the trails of bloodied tears (at least, that was what he thought they looked like) back up into the boy's eyes. That was strange. Naruto never had an issue with bleeding eyes; that was more a symptom of the Sharingan than anything else.

Perhaps they were injured?

Kakashi furrowed his brow, leaning forward with two hesitant fingers and prying open one of Naruto's eyes.

His heart stopped.

Quicker than he could even think, Kakashi moved his other hand to his forehead protector and yanked it up, over his covered eye. He squinted, focusing his chakra through his Sharingan and staring, hoping to some faraway god that what he was seeing wasn't true.

No. His eyes _weren't_ deceiving him.

Kakashi bundled Naruto up in his arms and leapt to his feet, panic fueling his movement. He could feel the blood from his student's eyes start to seep through his flak jacket, but he paid it no mind, taking to the trees as soon as he saw the fading daylight from between the crumbling faux trunk of Pein's structure.

Kakashi hoped, in some distant place at the back of his mind, that Lady Tsunade would be awake by the time they arrived back at the village.

But the cynical part of him – the _realistic_ part already knew the truth.

And Kakashi could only pray that everything would turn out okay in the end.

* * *

The sun had long since set when Sakura finally finished her shift with the Evacuation Corps. She stumbled through the dusty haze, sidestepping mountains of rubble and debris, before she slid her way down the wall of the massive crater that used to be the Hidden Leaf.

Much to her own surprise, there had been _no_ casualties - not even so much as a broken bone.

Sakura froze, bit her lip, and frowned.

Well, no casualties but one.

Still, she couldn't help but think to herself just how many lives Lady Tsunade's sacrifice saved - or, at the very least, how many she had protected from catastrophic injury.

But there was still the matter of the dead coming back to life, and Sakura chewed on that thought as she made her way down the cliffside. Flickering lights beckoned her forward with each step she took, and it wasn't much longer until she found herself stepping foot into the sea of tents that she now had to call home.

Her mind turned to Naruto, and she felt a little sick to her stomach.

Everything had happened so fast. The world was shaking, the earth was _moving_ and twisting and buckling under the intense pressure of Pein's ultimate technique... and then it was quiet.

Too quiet.

She had seen bodies - civilians and ninja alike, scattered about like some sort of twisted game of freeze tag. They burned holes in her eyes, left permanent imprints as she walked.

But now she could see those same bodies, those same soulless husks smiling and laughing and _living_. They walked along side her as she made her way through the shantytown, moving large tent bags and stacking firewood in piles or cooking fantastic-smelling meals that made Sakura's subconscious skip a beat and question if _any of what just happened was real?_

But it was. All she had to do was look around her.

"Ahh!" A voice called out from behind her, and Sakura twisted on her heel. "There you are!"

"Shizune?" Sakura asked, voice breathless and battered. She cleared her throat, straightened her back. "Yes?"

The woman ran up to her with eyes wide and worried, and she stopped a few feet from Sakura's body to give it a once-over.

"I'm fine, Shizune," Sakura said. "Just a little tired."

Shizune appeared to have come to the same conclusion herself, and nodded. "I'm glad you're alright."

"And Lady Tsunade?" Sakura asked, biting at the bit and asking the question that had been niggling at the back of her mind since all had gone quiet.

"Stable," Shizune said, shrugging. "There's not much we can do. It was extreme chakra exhaustion - she had to use all of her reserves." She grew quiet. "Most people would have died doing what she did."

"Well, Lady Tsunade isn't just 'most people'," Sakura said with a tired smile, running a hand through her sweat-caked hair.

"Speaking of extra-ordinary," Shizune said with a quirk of her eyebrow, "where's Naruto?"

Sakura shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm starting to get a bit worried - he's been gone for a long while. Kakashi went after him about half an hour ago... but I don't know."

Shizune frowned, clutching the pig in her arms closer to her chest. "I hope he's okay," she muttered.

Sakura let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and nodded. "Yeah. Me too. He pretty much single-handedly defeated Pein - he deserves a lossless victory for once."

Shizune opened her mouth to respond, but it pursed into a frown and she looked over Sakura's shoulder towards the northern border of the village. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?" Sakura twisted around, watching the way the crowds of civilians and shinobi all froze, heads turning one direction.

A lone figure, hunched over and carrying something on its back, was creeping its way towards her.

"Make way!" a villager shouted. "Make way for Naruto Uzumaki!"

Sakura's heart lurched in her chest, and a feeling of dread began to seep its way into her bones. The air was far from celebratory, nor was it the uproarious fanfare she was expecting the moment Naruto set foot in the village again.

It was anxious. _Fearful_.

Sakura didn't like it.

"Move, please," she said gently, prying her way through the crowd, as she made her way towards Naruto. "Excuse me, I'm a medic, please make way..."

"Sakura," she heard, and it was only then she realized it was Kakashi that was walking towards her, an unconscious Naruto slung over his back like a sling. "Sakura, he needs help."

A hush ran over the crowd, and the entire village seemed to stop. Time froze - only the travelling gaze of dozens of eyes shifting between the three of them that marked the seconds as they ticked, ticked, ticked by.

Sakura ran forward, eyes wide. "Kakashi-sensei-"

"I don't know what happened," Kakashi said, and it was only then that Sakura realized just how tense her teacher looked. He twisted his neck around, looking at the sea of villagers that had swamped around them, and met Sakura's eye with his own.

She understood. "Alright, let's get him into a tent."

She pressed her way through the crowd as a dull murmur rushed through it, Kakashi following her like a shadow. When they broke free, Sakura rushed forward, searching out the medical tent from afar. Kakashi kept right on her tail, and it wasn't until she had pushed aside a tent flap and pulled a pair of latex gloves from her vest pocket that Kakashi let out a sigh.

Sakura guided her teammate down onto a cot near the rear, making certain she was gentle. "What's wrong with him, exactly?" she asked, when she was certain they were alone after a cursory sweep of the tent around them.

Kakashi shook his head. "I... think it's best for you to see for yourself."

He pointed at his eyes.

Sakura frowned, flicked the lantern on above Naruto's bed, and leaned forward. She saw the way the blood was caked down his cheeks, the way it seemed to seep into his orange jacket and burn the top half of it a dark, unpleasant black.

Her fingers shook as she reached forward, fearing the worst.

She pried open Naruto's eyelids, and surprise met fear in a cold, dark embrace.

* * *

 **Author's Note(s):** Alright. So I did it. I started another fic. (Long-ass author's note incoming for the first chapter)

Well, this has been a long time coming, let's be honest here. If you follow me elsewhere (Tumblr, Spacebattles, Reddit, etc), you probably already know how much I really fucking hate Rinnegan fics. Rather than complaining about it anymore, I just decided to bite the bullet and practice what I preach. So here we go!

 **I am only going to say this once _._**

If you are here for a harem, or a lemon, or any sort of romance whatsoever, then turn around now.  
If you are here for Godlike!Naruto, turn around now.  
If you are here for a canon rewrite, turn around now.  
If you are here expecting characters to not make mistakes that bite them in the ass later, turn around now.

This is a character development fic. There will be some Rinnegan-y moments, but as with all things of this nature, the Rinnegan is a _tool_ , not a crutch. It's not the focal point of this story. It's a _part_ of it.

Characters will make mistakes. They will be put on the spot and be forced out of their comfort zones.

If your first instinct is to claim that something in this fic is a plot hole, consider that there's a likely chance I've considered it and we just haven't gotten to the point in the story where that's developed yet. (One of the pitfalls of updating serially like this, but oh well.)

Thank you for reading, and for following.

See you next chapter!  
\- Endo

* * *

 **Uploaded on** : 27 Jan 2017  
 **Official betas for this chapter:** N/a  
 **Final word count:** 4117 words


	2. Legacy

_*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*_

* * *

 **Eyes Wide Shut**

 **Chapter 2 - Legacy**

* * *

"Why? Because you're my son, after all."

His father beamed down at him, looking at him like he was the light of the world.

In some senses, this was the truth – they were both standing in the ethereal plane of his own mind, conversing on a blank platform of marbled nothingness. For all intents and purposes, he _was_ the light: the light of _this_ world.

Naruto socked his father in the gut.

"What…?" Minato croaked as he practically folded in two, face bewildered and mouth agape.

"Why," Naruto whispered, licking dry lips. "Why did you do this to me?" His eyes clouded over.

 _"Why did you have to die?"_

The unasked question lay heavy on Naruto's lips, but Minato seemed to sense it all the same.

The Fourth Hokage sighed – a sharp exhale that almost, _almost_ sounded like something a father would do.

Naruto's heart jumped in his chest.

"Because you're my son," Minato repeated. "If there was anyone that could learn to tame the Nine-Tails and make being a jinchuuriki a _blessing_ and not a _curse,_ it's you, Naruto."

Minato reached over and placed a hand, light and soft but also warm and calm on his shoulder. Naruto turned, looked up and stared into his father's eyes, and for the first time truly realized just what they were.

They were his.

They were _his_ eyes.

Naruto saw himself, saw little bits of what he saw when he looked in the mirror every morning. Saw the way the color almost curdled in the air, spiraling into a muted baby blue that reflected the light oh so well.

It was a gift, he realized. His eyes were a gift – from his father.

"Dad," Naruto whispered, and he shook on his feet. He cried - oh, he _cried._ But the smile on his face never broke.

It was beautiful.

"I'm going to reset the seal now," Minato said, a soft smile of his own pulling at the edges of his sunlit face. "I don't have much energy left, but it should be enough."

He took his hand off Naruto's shoulder and used his fingers to prop Naruto's chin up.

"You look just like your mother," he murmured, and then he twisted his hand against Naruto's gut and the world went white.

* * *

Naruto jerked awake.

He flung himself upward, gasping for air like a drowning child. His heart raced through his chest - the sharp, unpleasant throbbing weaved a tapestry of uncertain dread that was no sooner draped across his mind in a haze of fuzzy confusion.

He remembered Pein, remembered Nagato... remembered Jiraiya and the toads and a whole slew of others, rumbling through his thoughts in much the same way his stomach seemed to be bubbling uncomfortably in his belly.

But it was his father - a man he'd met for all of _five minutes -_ that stood out the most.

For some reason, that thought alone made him even more queasy.

Naruto groaned, and fell backwards as the memory of the dream (or was it a nightmare?) worked its way out of his system.

He blinked once, twice; frowned when he realized he couldn't see because his eyes were bandaged closed.

After clawing at the gauze for a moment in vain, he allowed his hand drop to his side and let out a heavy sigh. The feel of rough fabric (canvas, something deep in his mind reminded him) ran across his palms, and he groaned as a small flicker of pain, no brighter than a lit match, began to grow into a roaring bonfire across his face.

So he _was_ alive, then.

Hurt, for sure, but alive. He'd recognize the unpleasant sterile stench of a hospital room anywhere.

The low rumble of conversation drifted through the room, and Naruto perked up, straining to listen in.

 _"...good chance...won't wake up..."_

Naruto frowned, and sat up as much as he could manage.

 _"...you certain?"_

 _That_ was a voice he recognized.

 _"...-unately so. I'm very sorry, Lady Sakura."_

Silence. Then, after a pause, Naruto heard what sounded like a quiet sigh, and then the _crunch, crunch_ of sandal-on-gravel as the two individuals separated.

Who were they talking about?

Were they talking about _him?_

Naruto hadn't hurt himself _that much_ , had he?

He frowned. The last thing he remembered doing - the last significant bit of damage he remembered enduring - was from when Pein ran chakra spikes through his hands and legs in some sort of bizarre Jinchuuriki crucifixion.

But the near release of the Nine-Tails had repaired that.

' _So why,_ ' Naruto thought, as he plucked at the bedsheets beneath him, ' _am I in the hospital?_ '

His heart tripped over itself when a wave of repressed memories, dulled by the warm fuzziness of sleep, came crashing over him.

Kakashi. Tsunade.

The _Hidden Leaf._

He shot up in his bed again. It was almost instinct for him now, the way he let the nature energy seep into his body and mingle with his own. He channeled it, willed it to move in the strange and backwards manner that only this kind of chakra would obey, and _focused_ \- straining with every ounce of his willpower to sense what he so desperately needed to sense.

He let out a careful breath, and the gentle tendrils of Sage Mode settled into place.

One by one, he felt them.

Sakura. Tsunade. Kakashi-sensei. Shikamaru and Akamaru and Chouji and Tenten. Neji and Gai-sensei and Kiba and Hinata so many others, a wall of people - a sea of villagers, settled around him, quiet, chakras stable.

He let out a sigh of relief. A sigh of _peace_.

It was done.

Pein was defeated.

And the village was _safe_.

He let himself crash back onto the bed, the frame rattling like loose metal. He felt stronger already - the Sage Mode had something to do with that, most certainly, but there was something more nuanced to it; something more _personable_.

His village was safe, and he'd done his duty as a shinobi, and there was nothing more peaceful than that.

Little did he know, as he let himself drift back off into sleep, unsure if he had ever been awake at all, that the hands of fate were twisting and turning and _writhing_ around one another - and that things weren't nearly as peaceful as they seemed.

* * *

Konan looked out from her perch, and frowned.

She was stuck in that insurmountably tiny space that laid not quite inside, not quite outside the doorway of the skyscraper she called home, stuck between her past and her present.

And in a small way, stuck between her past and her future.

The village she now found herself leading – alone – stretched out behind her in a haze of noise and light and rain, the bleak darkness of the night sky doing its best to trample it: to snuff it out.

Man versus nature, dark versus light.

It was always the same.

She sighed, dropped to her knees and slid her way down the wall until her feet dangled over the ledge, hundreds of feet up. Rain pelted against her robes, the matted grey and faded red staining an eerie satin black. She watched it run down her clothes, dripping off and down, down, down to the streets far below.

She was alone now.

Truly alone.

It hit her hard, the first time the realization of her newfound isolation struck.

In over a decade, Konan had never been truly alone. Lonely, for certain, but there was always that one person, that one _friend_ she could rely on, could use as a lifeline to the past.

But he was gone now.

Sacrificed for the dream he so dared to commit.

Now she understood, as much as it hurt. And after each wave of pain, after each aftershock shook her, she understood more and more.

Konan let her face shift into a steely, stoic mask of indifference, and looked out over the city she ruled.

With a careful heave, she let herself drop from the tower's rafters and fell, following the rain. Her paper wings caught her in an upward gust of wind as she dropped, sending her soaring high into the sky above the Hidden Rain.

She looked down upon her village. In their eyes, she was their angel.

And if she wasn't one before, she needed to be one now.

* * *

"I think... yes, he's awake! Sakura? Where's Sakura!"

Naruto groaned, the world dark and sticky and smelling of chemicals and nurses and the whole slew of bad memories that came with it.

He hated hospitals.

He heard the clamoring of fabric, the crushing of gravel, and suddenly there was a hand on his forehead, his teammate grumbling above him.

"Hey," she said, voice quiet and reserved. "Are you doing alright?"

Naruto frowned, stretched his neck and turned towards her voice. "Yeah, I guess so." He grimaced, stretching his arms. "Why am I so stiff?" He pressed his eyebrows together underneath the gauze on his face, and turned so he was pointed in Sakura's direction. "And why are my eyes all wrapped up? I can't see anything."

Silence.

He reached up to his face with a grumble. "Fine, whatever. Can I at least take the bandages off?" He began to pick at the edges of the gauze, finding the strength this time to pull them away. "And why are they all bandaged in the first place?"

"Naruto-" Sakura started, and she jumped forward to grab his arms and freeze him in place.

Naruto's hand stopped midair, and he let it be guided away from his face when Sakura tugged it down to his side again.

"You need to heal," she said, her voice careful and professional.

"What happened?"

"You..." she paused, and Naruto could imagine her twisting at the corners of her dress in that funny way she always did, her face slanted and deep in thought. "You got hurt during the fight. With Pein."

Naruto tilted his neck like a puppy given a confusing command. "Huh? But I beat Pein. He did some weird jutsu, and started glowing, and..."

He frowned.

"And you passed out," Sakura finished. "Kakashi found you there. Something... something was wrong with you, Naruto. We're still trying to figure out what _exactly_ happened, but..."

Naruto sat up further in the bed, starting to climb his way out. Sakura and Shizune each made muffled noises of surprise, and he felt a pair of hands pushing him back down again.

"Naruto," Sakura's voice chastised again, "you need to _rest_. Please. Just... trust me on this, okay?"

Something about her tone of voice stilled him.

They sat in silence for a heartbeat, and Naruto stretched his senses until he heard the outside world rustling and bustling around them. He heard what sounded like a gaggle of children rush just past him on his right, and lurched at the sound.

"What?" He reached out with his hand, felt the walls of the 'hospital' push away from him. "Is this fabric? Where are we?"

"We're in a tent," Shizune said. "The village was destroyed. I'm sure you remember that much, at least."

 _"Is Kakashi-sensei out on a mission?"_

Naruto bit his lip. "Yeah. I remember."

"That jutsu Pein used, the one you mentioned... we think it brought everyone back to life," Sakura said, rising to her feet and standing over him. Naruto followed her voice with his neck, listened as she began to walk away. "There were no fatalities."

Shizune sighed. "Well... no, but there were many casualties."

Naruto blinked, his eyelids heavy and restricted underneath the fabric. "What? Who?" A pause, and he realized something. "Where's Granny Tsunade?"

More silence.

"Sakura," Naruto grit out, " _where is Granny Tsunade?"_

"She's hurt," Shizune said, blunt as a dull axe. "Badly. She saved almost everyone's life when Pein destroyed the village, and..."

"She's in a coma," Sakura finished. "We don't know when she'll wake up. It's... bad, Naruto."

Silence - this time from Naruto.

"I want to see her," was all he said, after a few moments of introspection, his voice sounding strange and tinny to his own ears. "Can I see her? Where is she? Can you take me to her—?"

"Naruto," Sakura said, leaning over him, "I already told you. You're hurt too. You need to _rest_. Please."

"Yeah," Shizune said, and Naruto could tell by the way her voice sounded that she was smiling. "We need the village hero to be ship-shape. There are a lot of people that want to see you, you know."

"Really?"

"Yes," Sakura said, although she sounded far less sincere. "Now _please_ , Naruto, go back to sleep. I'll be here all night, but you need to rest. Otherwise you won't be getting out of here any time soon."

He heard the fumbling of chairs and the sound of sandals on gravel, and soon Shizune was rising from her seat and collecting her belongings with a rustle of fabric and a sigh on her lips.

"Rest easy," was all she said, before her footsteps faded and she ducked out of the medic tent, back into the village.

* * *

When next he woke, Naruto found himself in a land of light.

He blinked, scratched at his eyes, looked around at the sea of yellow-gold that stretched out around him in expansive nothingness. He spun every which way, but it was unending - and he was standing in the middle of it, alone and confused.

It took him far longer than he was comfortable admitting to realize he never really woke up at all.

This was a different world – a different place from with his father. He was dreaming again, that much was certain, but it was different from watching the highlight reel of a tragically short memory.

This place felt more… _real._

"Naruto."

He lurched.

He knew that voice. It lay fresh in his mind, like the first patch of fresh grass in early spring, and the lack of familiarity – the lack of _connection_ he had to the voice made him all the more uncomfortable.

The world, it seemed, wasn't quite so empty anymore.

"Your mind," Nagato said, "is rather beautiful."

He was just… there; like he'd always been and always would be. Naruto blinked and frowned, but couldn't recall a moment in his own memory where Nagato _hadn't_ occupied that very spot, standing there like he belonged - like he had a purpose.

But another part of his brain was yelling in protest at the dichotomy, the _confusion,_ and the disconnect between mind and memory began to make him nauseous.

Nagato was wearing red robes, hood lowered and thrown behind his back like the wind had knocked it from his head. His hair was no longer a faded grey, and Naruto marveled at the burgundy red it really was - straight and neat and full of life.

"I, uhh... thanks." Naruto scratched at his cheek. "I didn't think this was my mind. I always thought that's what the fox's room was."

Nagato murmured in neither agreement nor disagreement, and turned, looking around.

"You're wondering why I'm here, I'm sure."

Naruto frowned, took a step forward to better assess things. He hadn't seen Nagato outside of that tree - and now that he saw how the man was _supposed_ to look, he truly understood how frail he had been at death's doorstep. "Yeah... what's going on? Wasn't I awake just a moment ago?"

"You fell asleep," Nagato said. His shoulders twitched, and it took Naruto a few moments to realize that he had shrugged.

"Okay..." Naruto said, taking another few steps forward. Nagato stayed locked in place, but his head followed him as he moved. "But why are you here?"

"Yes, right," Nagato said, smiling, looking down at the ground beneath them. "There's that."

The world spun, and the golden-yellow haze of Naruto's inner mind disappeared.

Everything swirled, twisted like a watercolor painting, until the sky above them turned heavy with rain and the ground vanished under a layer of murky water.

Thunder crackled, and Naruto looked up into the air, expecting lightning to come shooting from the sky. Instead, he nearly teetered over when the earth began to shake, and massive spires of metal and concrete and light rose from the earth in a burst of light, splitting the lake and the sky along the skyline.

Nagato watched all of this with passive indifference, and threaded the sleeves of his cloak within one another.

The rumbling stopped, and Naruto blinked.

"What," he said, taking a few steps forward when he realized he could hardly hear himself over the hiss of rain ricocheting off the surface of the lake, "what's going on, Nagato? I thought this was my mind?" He raised a hand above his face, wincing as the rain pelted against his skin and bled through his clothes.

"You're right," Nagato said. "This _is_ your mind."

The rain stopped, and Naruto raised an eyebrow. He pulled his hand out from in front of his face.

"What?" he repeated again. The rain _hadn't_ stopped. Instead, it was now silent - smattering against the water like it had simply fallen straight through. It fell just as hard as before, but now slipped past him as if he weren't there at all.

"This is your mind," Nagato said, turning and looking up at the sky. "If you want it to be quiet, so be it."

He raised a hand, pointed at the glowing oasis of light that broke the horizon like a ship on a sea of glass. "And this is the Hidden Rain."

Naruto blinked, narrowing his eyes at the mass of grey skyscrapers. "Really? It looks so..." He pursed his lips in thought, "...sad."

"You're not wrong," Nagato said with a sigh, moving to stand beside him. "It wasn't always like this. But it's my home."

A crackle of thunder echoed through the valley.

"But you're here for a different purpose," Nagato said, turning and looking down at him with that uneven smile that Naruto realized was how the man showed he was pleased with something. "As am I."

The ground blurred, and the pillars of light that looked so far away one moment rushed forward and surrounded them like a blanket of steel. The hiss of rain returned, and was joined by the cacophonous roar of civilians making their way through the village streets, dancing along the cobbled steps like blotches of black ink on a canvas of neon.

Naruto blinked, twisted in place, and looked around. "This place is _huge_."

"Indeed," Nagato said, and began to walk. "Follow me."

Naruto did as he was instructed. Nagato's cloaked form weaved in and out of the sea of villagers, each ignoring the other as if they had never existed at all.

They walked for what felt like hours. By the time Naruto realized that they were in _his_ mind and he could just 'will' himself wherever it was they were going, Nagato stopped and stared up at one particularly massive skyscraper.

"Come with me," he said, and cast open the iron door.

The hiss of rain became a dull memory as the door rushed closed behind them in a slam of metal on metal, and Naruto followed Nagato up the winding steps towards the penthouse.

The building was empty, save for the staircase – Naruto looked around in muddled surprise at the fact that they were marching up the inside of a hollow shell. The walls of the building shrank inwards, following them up as they walked, and Naruto tried to shirk the feeling of claustrophobia that was beginning to creep around inside of him.

The stairs came and went far quicker than Naruto expected them to, and before long Nagato was holding open another door.

The room at the top of the tower left much to be desired, and Naruto began to wonder as they made their way further inside why it was, exactly, that Nagato had led him there in the first place.

It wasn't until they reached a strange opening in the wall, where a metallic tongue stretched into the night sky and the hissing sound of rain returned, that he began to suspect.

This was Nagato's home.

"I trust you remembered the way here," Nagato said, moving towards the opening in the wall and staring down into the village like a gargoyle.

Naruto moved to his side and looked out as well, more from curiosity than obligation. The rain fell past them in a shapeless cascade. "Umm, kinda?"

Nagato was silent.

The village stretched forward inlike a sprawling network of wires and cables and intrusive neon light.

"You have friends, do you not?" Nagato paused. "People you can rely on? You can trust?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, of course. I consider everyone in the Leaf Village my friend, even if they don't think so."

"I see," Nagato said. "I felt much the same way about the Hidden Rain."

The rain stopped.

"Don't make the same mistakes I did, Naruto," he said, leaning a shoulder against the framework of the building. "Don't try and take the world onto your own shoulders."

Naruto looked up at him, surprised. "Nagato?"

"Your burdens may feel like they're yours and yours alone," he said. "But that's not true. Please, don't forget that."

Naruto took a step forward in confused silence, and blinked.

The Hidden Rain disappeared. Nagato disappeared.

Naruto was alone again, in the land of light.

He twisted, turned, took a hesitant step forward when he was certain he wasn't still standing on a ledge two hundred feet off the ground.

He blinked, mesmerized, his mind tracing through his memories and attempting to digest what it was, exactly, that had just happened. It rushed through him in an instant, yet trickled by in a stream, and his head hurt from thinking about it too much.

And when he jerked upright in his cot in the hospital, a cold sweat soaked into his clothes, he wasn't sure he was ready to believe that he wasn't still standing there, alone in the field of his mind.

* * *

 **Author's Note(s):** Whoop! So this is two days late (story of my life), as I was attempting to get it out 2 weeks after the first chapter, but... well it's whatever! I can't really promise regular updates, but I'm going to certainly try.

Regardless, if you're curious to see what my progress for a chapter is (be it this fic or Blonding), I have a section of my profile page devoted entirely to how far along I am into the next chapter. Readers of Blonding have told me they've really appreciated having that available to them, and it's no skin off my back, so there ya go!

This chapter is a bit of a shift from the previous one, I hope you can tell. Much more from Naruto's POV, some more of Konan, that sort of thing. I'm excited - Konan is so tragically underrepresented. I aim to try and fix that a little bit.

Next chapter, Naruto will realize what's happened. So stay tuned for that!

(Also, a HUGE shoutout to my tremendous beta readers for this chapter, Enbi and Dakeyras (waylandertheslayer). I wrote this chapter when I was in a bit of a creative rut and they really helped me fix my writing so it meshed better with the previous chapter. Go give them a gander! Links are on my profile page.)

Thanks for reading! See you soon,  
\- Endo

* * *

 **Uploaded on** : 12 Feb 2017  
 **Official betas for this chapter:** Enbi, Dakeyras  
 **Final word count:** 4029 words


	3. Endure

_*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*_

* * *

 **Eyes Wide Shut**

 **Chapter 3 - Endure**

* * *

Kakashi found Naruto the next morning.

He was bumbling around the village in his hospital robes, half mummified and completely oblivious to the world around him.

"Huh?" he said when Kakashi approached him, once the sight became too awkward to watch. A gaggle of villagers shot him a dirty look when he spun on his feet and stepped in front of them. "Oh, I guess I got lost on the way to the bathroom."

"You left the tent to go to the bathroom?" Kakashi asked.

"Wait, I'm not in the tent anymore?" Naruto said. He frowned, reached out in front of him with his hands, and groped the empty air.

"You're standing in the middle of a street," Kakashi said. It wasn't much of a street; more of a dusty throughway that the lumberjacks used to haul building supplies into the heart of the crater. It was dangerous - something Naruto was painfully unaware of.

"We need to get you back to the hospital," he said, flipping his book shut and pocketing it in one smooth, practiced motion.

"Why?" Naruto turned, angled himself until he was pointed, more or less, at Kakashi. He frowned, the skin of his face tugging at the bandages wrapped around his eyes. "Sakura won't tell me anything. I just sit there. I feel _fine_ , Kakashi-sensei."

"Hmm," replied noncommittally, and he set off towards the medic tent. "That's how it often goes, wouldn't you say?"

Naruto spun in place again, and began taking hesitant, shaky steps in pursuit of Kakashi's travelling voice. "Yeah! That's what I keep telling Sakura, but even Shizune is being mean and keeping me locked up."

"Perhaps that means you should listen to them that much more," Kakashi said, spinning on a heel and turning a full ninety degrees to the left. "Shizune is often right, you know."

He paused midstep. "So is Sakura, as a matter of fact." He made the effort of bringing a hand up to his masked face in thought, despite knowing full well Naruto wouldn't be able to appreciate it. "Hmm, it's almost as though doctors know what they're talking about."

"Well, _yeah,_ " Naruto said, falling into line behind the jounin in a stumble-step, freezing a centimeter before he would have smashed into Kakashi's slouched backside. "But still."

"But still," Kakashi parroted, walking between two mountains of loose gravel that had been piled high in the street. A line of carpenters marched past them, and Kakashi weaved around them with graceless ease. "You should listen to your superiors." He shrugged. "Just in general."

Kakashi watched over his shoulder as Naruto tracked his voice, correcting his course as he walked with subtle readjustments.

' _He's learning,'_ Kakashi thought, and pushed forward.

He hummed an off-key tune to himself as they approached the tent, satisfied with the way Naruto latched onto it and followed him like a baby duckling. He pulled back the flap and Naruto made his way inside, none the wiser.

"There you are, you _idiot!_ "

Sakura stormed past him.

"You're still all bandaged up! And the village is dangerous right now, what with all the construction going on, and—don't you _make that face at me!_ So help me God, Naruto—"

Kakashi ducked back into the street to make a discreet exit (he was sure Sakura would find something to nag him about, given the opportunity) but the quiet cough from around the corner made him pause.

"Shizune," he acknowledged, giving the woman a small wave and a smile. "Glad to see you're up and about."

"I could say the same for you," she replied, shaking her head. "You took quite the beating."

"We all did." Kakashi shot a pointed glance at the tent behind them. "Some more than others."

Shizune sighed. "Yeah… about that."

"You're going to tell him, aren't you?" He narrowed his eyes when she bit her lip. "You're doing it now."

"Well…" she paused, wincing. "I've given my fair share of bad medical diagnoses. I've seen far too many broken faces. Far too many breakdowns." A sigh. "I just… worry, that's it."

Kakashi shrugged. "Well, it is Naruto, after all."

"I know," she said. "Which is _why_ I'm worried."

"Do you want me to stay? For when you tell him?"

"I think that would be a good idea."

Shizune gave him an exhausted smile so lopsided that Kakashi began to wonder just how much the medic-nin had been working since the village was revived.

She took a deep breath, steeled herself in the way that only a physician could, and stepped through the curtain into darkness.

* * *

Konan waited.

The village stretched out before her like an empty notebook. The buildings were populated and streets were bustling, but the Village Hidden in the Rain was never alive. It was too soulless; too _new_.

It always felt like it was waiting for something – much like herself, it seemed.

She'd made her preparations. She'd made her peace.

The devil was at her door. All that remained was to let him in.

* * *

 _"Naruto…"_

They'd sat him down on the cot, stood above him like statues.

He knew it was bad. He knew it before they peeled the bandages off his face.

He heard the rattle of Shizune's pens in her pocket, heard the sound of Kakashi flipping through his book in the far corner of the room.

He heard the waver in Sakura's voice.

 _"…not enough optic nerve left to restore sight, but we did the best we could…"_

Surprise wasn't the word. Nor was anger.

He let his fingers dig trenches in the bedsheets, let his nails bottom out on the canvas of his cot and gnaw at his skin.

He felt numb.

Much like the way his eyes felt now, after being unwrapped and prodded at and doused in Sakura's healing chakra one last time _'just to be sure'_. He moved them around the room, felt the tug and pull at the muscles in his face as they arced from voice to voice, but all he saw was darkness.

And then he was running.

He was gone from the tent in a flurry of disregarded motion, bolted through the gap in the canvas wall and ran out into the warmth of the sunlight, moved by nothing other than the sudden sense of claustrophobia and taste of vomit in his mouth.

Sakura and Shizune called out for him, but he ignored them. He felt a brush against his shoulder - Kakashi, no doubt - but he shirked out of the touch with little fanfare and no retribution.

He ran.

He ran and ran and ran, ran until the worn gravel streets underneath his feet gave way to a blanket of soft pine and the quiet crackle of breaking twigs. Ran until he crashed into something – he wasn't sure what – but kept moving anyways. The sound of hammers on nails and lumber on stone faded to birds and insects and rushing water and his heart thundering in his chest.

He felt the sun's splotchy gaze drift through the canopy of trees above him, felt the way the sunlight tingled his skin and danced to the trees' dance. But still the world was dark.

Maybe effort was all he needed. Maybe if he pushed himself hard enough, something would come undone and the world would snap back into focus.

A headache blossomed behind the lids of his eyes - not from the pure force of determination, but from something else.

He slid down the side of a tree, held his face in his hands, and sat there, motionless, until the pockets of warmth on his skin faded and he was left cold, hungry, and tired.

He heard the whisper of nighttime grow to a roar; heard the wolves and the raccoons and the nightingales come alive in the darkness.

The rough bark of the tree behind him came up and bit his head, and he looked up at where the sky would have been on any other day.

So he was blind now.

That was the price he'd paid.

* * *

"Tsunade could have helped him," Sakura said, seated on Naruto's cot, folding his discarded bandages between her fingers and trying to hold herself together. "By the time I got to him, his optic nerve had deteriorated too much. I couldn't do anything. But Lady Tsunade could have figured something out."

"Sakura, you can't take fault for this. We did the best we could."

"This week," she said. She turned, looked Shizune in the eye. "This week has been the worst for him I've seen."

Kakashi let out a quiet sigh, and pocketed his book. "It's been hard on all of us, Sakura. Not just him."

Sakura scowled, but said nothing.

"Kakashi's just trying to help," Shizune said. She gave Kakashi a look.

"He could have stayed," Sakura said. "He could have stayed and talked about it."

Shizune was silent for a moment. "Naruto deals with stress and problems just like everyone else. It's important to remember that he needs time to process all of this." She reached over to pat Sakura's knee. "And he does that in his own way."

"He doesn't deserve this," Sakura sighed. "he doesn't deserve any of this."

Shizune bit her cheek. "I know. And I agree. But that's life."

"Naruto is strong. Far stronger than he lets on."

Sakura frowned. "Sensei?"

"He's not strong because he knows jutsu, or can spar well, or understands chakra theory," Kakashi said. "Because he can't do any of that."

He pulled out his book and flipped it open to the same weathered page. "He endures. He always gets up again."

And then he was gone, lost in a plume of leaves.

* * *

 _"You fool."_

Naruto struggled in the darkness, then steadied himself with his memories of the previous day when they came rushing back to him in a whisper of brutal honesty.

 _"They tainted you."_

"Who's there?"

" _You've been_ _ **mangled."**_

He started walking, but it felt like he was wading through jelly. Each step was a struggle; each breath was a war.

The silence was a screaming echo in his ears, and he spun in place, trapped like a baited rat.

 _"You are a man no more."_

He froze, strained his ears, _listened._

 _"No. You were never a man."_

He heard the hiss of rain, far off but imminent.

It sounded like the roar of a tornado, thundered like the beating of a drum.

 _"A child, perhaps. A fool for certain. But not a man."_

The floor shifted sideways, and Naruto yelped. The world turned on its axis, twisted in space. Naruto could do no more than hold still and pray.

The wall of sound approached.

"I'm dreaming," Naruto thought, words crisp and clear in his head but lost to the howl of the storm. "I'm just dreaming."

Closer.

" _But a man you will never be."_

 _Closer._

Naruto braced himself, locked his arms and legs and grit his teeth.

The world came undone around him.

A crack; a snap. Everything slowed.

Silence.

 _"No. You are broken. And that is just a worse fate."_

Naruto opened his eyes.

* * *

"Are you going to sit like that forever, or are you going to get a move on?"

Naruto lurched awake, gasping for breath and clutching at ground beneath his feet.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto muttered, voice hoarse. His head fell back against the trunk he was propped up against and he heaved a massive sigh. "Where am I?"

"That's a great question," Kakashi mused, leaning against the stump of a fallen tree, watching the way Naruto twisted upright in a hurried flourish. "We're a few miles from the village, I'd say. But not too far out."

"A few _miles?_ " Naruto said, voice cracking. "What? I didn't… I don't even…"

"Relax," Kakashi said. "You were stressed. It's normal."

"I don't remember running," he said. He waved his hands in front of his face a few times, frowning. "I remember leaving, but… I don't remember running."

Kakashi gave him a noncommittal murmur, and threaded his fingers into his pockets. "What happened back there, Naruto?"

He blinked, looked up in Kakashi's direction. "Huh?"

"During the attack," Kakashi said. "The Nine-Tails appeared to break free. And then everyone in the village came back to life." He kicked some dirt loose from his sandals. "Including me."

Naruto slid back down the tree trunk again, until his knees were tucked close to his chest. "I don't really know, to be honest."

Kakashi walked over to the other side of the tree, making a concerted effort to be as noisy as possible, and posited himself on the other side of the tree trunk.

When Naruto neglected to continue, Kakashi cast him a sidelong glance from over his shoulder.

He was smiling.

"Something happened," Kakashi assumed.

Naruto let his knees drop, and stretched his feet out in the mossy grass. "I met my father," was all he said.

Kakashi froze.

"You…"

"Met my dad, yeah," Naruto said with a grin, rubbing his hand across the corner of his mouth.

"Well then," Kakashi said, not entirely sure what to say to that. "That means you know?"

"That he was the Fourth Hokage? Yeah. And everything else."

Kakashi hummed. "Leave it to him to think of something so obscure."

Naruto was silent.

They sat together for a long while, each lost in the past. It wasn't until the sun began to set and sunlight shined through the cracks in the trees that Kakashi realized he'd fallen victim to his oldest nemesis - daydreaming.

Finally, after a few minutes of further thought, Kakashi asked the question that he came to ask in the first place. "Naruto, why are you blind?"

He started. "Why am I blind?" Naruto repeated with a snort. "You probably know better than I do, Kakashi-sensei."

Kakashi stood, turned, crouched on his knees in front of his student. "Naruto, there's something that the nurses didn't tell you."

Naruto sat up straight, leaned forward, furrowed his brow. Kakashi could practically feel the anxiety bubble up underneath the boy's skin.

"What?"

Naruto's eyes fell open on him as he spoke, a nervous waver in his voice.

They were dull. Unfocused.

It wasn't so much that it was disturbing, knowing that they were the eyes of a sightless man. Kakashi had seen his fair share of disabled shinobi in his time. The expressions of wounded soldiers, blinded by explosions or missing an eye (he knew that feeling well) as they struggled to adapt to their new lives were unpleasant, certainly, but not cold.

The Rinnegan was different.

He could sense the energy trapped behind those eyes. It was like a chained beast; leashed short but still snarling and spitting blood. It was pure and refined - powerless without purpose.

He remembered the way those eyes - those very same eyes - had struck him down days prior. They had humbled him; brought him back to ground.

And here they were again, watching him with quiet curiosity.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto repeated, and it was then that Kakashi realized his mind had wandered again.

"When you met with Pein," he said, "what happened?"

Naruto blinked. "With Pein? I don't…"

He paused, bit his lip, winced.

"I remember passing out," he said, voice dull and quiet. "I beat him. He accepted it." Naruto chuckled. "He said I was the better student of Jiraiya-sensei. Said I was his legacy, just as much as I was the old pervert's."

"His legacy?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Jiraiya only ever really wanted peace." He laughed, but it was hollow. "Maybe because he knew he'd sell more books that way.

"Nagato had the same dream about peace. After Jiraiya left to come back to the Leaf, he wanted to try and help somehow. The three of them." He paused. "They started Akatsuki for good. But something changed somewhere down the line, and Nagato started using Pein for stuff that… wasn't good."

"I think that's a bit of an understatement," Kakashi said. "You learned all of this from a fight?"

Naruto shook his head. "No. I told him I just wanted to talk. Fighting was pointless, because we were fighting about ideals."

"So that's why you were in the tree," Kakashi said.

"Yeah. We talked for a while. He told me his story. I told him a bit about mine." Naruto smiled, and looked down at the forest floor with sightless eyes. "He was guilty. I think because he realized he had been on the wrong path for far too long. So he brought everyone back to life. It killed him."

"And then you passed out?"

"Yeah."

Kakashi paused. "I see."

Naruto frowned, looked back up at him. "Why? Did something happen?"

"Naruto, Nagato gave you the Rinnegan."

* * *

She heard him before she saw him – which was true of every interaction Konan had with Madara.

"I had a suspicion."

She shifted in her seat, watched the way the shadows moved.

"I had a suspicion that you would betray me. Perhaps not Nagato as well - but there was always a chance."

"And you prepared for it, I'm certain," she said, voice steeled.

"Oh, of course," Madara's drawl echoed from the darkness. "After all, what kind of leader would I be if I didn't have contingency plans."

Konan tried her hardest not to grit her teeth. "You _aren't_ the leader of Akatsuki."

"If I wasn't before, I certainly am now," Madara said. "But I'd say that the man that controls the leader from the shadows is, himself, the leader – wouldn't you?"

"How metaphorical of you, Tobi," Konan said, eyes sweeping the room. A bolt of lightning split down the sky from outside of Pein's tower, casting long, far-reaching shadows of light across the empty concrete floor.

"It is quite fitting, isn't it?" The voice was on the other side of the room now. "Of course, one of the most important jobs of a leader is ensuring that the thing he leads isn't in danger of falling apart." A pause. "And that tends to happen when the leader himself is no longer in charge."

"If you want something done, do it yourself," Konan agreed. "Why worry yourself with delegation when you know your own interests better than anyone else."

 _"Exactly,"_ Madara said. The rain picked up again outside, falling from the sky like a sheet of opaque glass. "See, Konan, this is why I always appreciated your contributions to the Akatsuki."

"Where do you draw the line?" Konan asked. She uncrossed her legs, stood from her chair, and turned, meeting Madara's waiting gaze from across the room. "When is a leader no longer in charge?"

He stepped forward, orange mask a stain of color across the dreary greys of the Hidden Rain. "What a fantastic question," he replied, voice thick and sweeping. "See, I am of the opinion that any disagreement whatsoever can threaten an organization. It is important that all parties see eye-to-eye on matters of significant importance."

"And what matters, pray tell, would you say have the most significance to the Akatsuki?"

"The tailed beasts," he stated, dropping all theatrics. "The Gedo Statue." His lone eye, red and daring, narrowed in the darkness of his mask. "The Rinnegan."

"I see."

Madara took several long, confident steps around the chair. "Nagato was jaded," he said, turning his head towards the far wall to look out onto the skyline. "He was too idealistic."

"And you aren't?"

"The difference between idealism and confidence is that confidence tends to work," Madara said. He turned his back on her, crossed his arms. "This truly is a magnificent village. It has come a long way from the war-torn mess it was so few years ago."

"I wonder why that is," Konan said, voice sweet but laced with poison.

He murmured in agreement. "Wonder indeed. Perhaps Nagato wasn't quite as jaded as it would seem."

Madara shrugged. "Or perhaps it was because Pein was a better Kage than he was leader of Akatsuki."

Konan narrowed her eyes. "If you're trying to bait me, it won't work."

A crackle of thunder bit across the village.

"Quite the storm, this one," he said. "Are they usually this… vivacious?"

"Why are you here?" Konan asked.

"You know why."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"Where are they, Konan?" Madara asked, tilting his head.

"You'll have to be more specific."

She was running out of time.

Madara chuckled. "You disappoint me, Konan. And to think, you could have been a fantastic second in command."

"I still am," she muttered under her breath.

"I'm sorry," Madara said, "I'm didn't quite catch that."

"You say that a leader must resolve disputes?" Konan said, taking a step forward, moving out of the shadows. The moon sat in the sky, high above her. She forced herself to ignore it. "Well, I dispute _you_."

"How quaint," Madara sighed. "I suppose we will have to come to an agreement."

Another bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, and Madara was in her face.

"Give me his eyes," he hissed, "or _die_."

"Those are the best odds I've heard in a long time," Konan smiled, and evaporated into a breath of paper birds.

* * *

 **Author's Note(s):** Wow okay, so I did not mean to spend two and a half months on this! But here it is regardless.

So the reason this took so long in the first place was because I actually went out and painstakingly planned out every step of this fic, down to the scene. I know what's going to happen in Chapter 12, and I also know that this fic will be about 25 chapters long. I really want to treat this story as the dress rehearsal for my novel (whenever I get my dumb ass in gear on _that_ front). At some point, I'll be posting a pretty detailed description of what exactly it was I did on my Tumblr so you can see because damn son it was ridiculous. (Tables and lists and charts and _augh_ )

Anywho, that's that! Let me know what you think. Next thing you'll see from me is probably going to be another Blonding chapter. But I can't say for sure. You can follow along on my profile page like always!

See you on the other side of finals,  
\- Endo

* * *

 **Uploaded on** : 30 April 2017  
 **Official betas for this chapter:** NemesisQueer, Infamous Storm  
 **Final word count:** 3849 words


	4. Behold a Pale Horse

_*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*_

* * *

 **Eyes Wide Shut**

 **Chapter 4 - Behold a Pale Horse**

* * *

"Naruto, Nagato gave you the Rinnegan."

Silence. A heartbeat passed. The birds in the trees held their breath; even the leaves seemed to freeze mid-rustle in hushed anticipation. Kakashi wouldn't admit it, but he knew the ringing in his ears and the tense knot in his gut wasn't from shellshock.

He watched Naruto's expression, waiting for something. Another beat, another held breath.

Nothing came.

"I know."

Naruto's voice, raw and sharp and crisp in the silence, shattered through the air.

Kakashi blinked. "You what?"

"I had a guess," Naruto said. His gaze was loose and unfocused and bore a hole into the ground beneath Kakashi's feet. "It makes sense, doesn't it? That he gave me his eyes?"

Kakashi was silent.

Naruto chuckled; his breath came out in one sharp, quiet huff. It was hollow and stilted, and altogether _not_ the Naruto Kakashi knew. "Is that why Sakura was acting so weird? Why everyone's been keeping their distance?"

"If they have been," Kakashi said, "it's not because they know." He turned and looked up at the horizon towards the village, as if checking for some unseen message. "Although Sakura does, yes."

Naruto nodded, running his hands through the loose dirt at his sides, carding his fingers along the thin roots of late summer grass. His eyes kept staring at nothing, but even though they weren't focused on him, Kakashi felt as though they may as well have been.

"That meeting really did change you, didn't it?" he murmured.

Naruto smiled; this time, it was far more genuine.

* * *

"We'll need to start you up on some sort of training regimen," Kakashi said, meandering around a mountain of lumber in the city square. He squinted over the pages of his book at Naruto, and hummed when he verified that his student was taking care to stay in step behind him. The sun had long since set, but the village was just as bustling and lively as it had been the moment Kakashi had left it. "It's just your luck that the only jounin-sensei in the Leaf Village with a transplanted eye happens to be the one stuck with you."

Naruto pouted. His eyes were covered with gauze again – a necessary precaution – and the stretched fabric shifted over his cheekbones when he frowned. "Why do you have to be so mean to me, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Because I read it in a book once," he said. "Makes stronger students."

Naruto grumbled to himself.

Kakashi took a turn down a developing side street and stepped out from the sea of civilians. The village was coming along faster than he anticipated; every time he stopped to rest or take a short nap, it seemed like two new streets were cordoned off and three existing ones were twisted around each other like the loose ends of a frayed knot.

Kakashi stopped to take a mental note of the new street layout when Naruto moved forward, lips a fine line.

"Someone's coming," he murmured, looking past an unfinished apartment building. Kakashi couldn't see, but he knew Naruto's eyes were orange. "They're running towards us."

"Enemies?" Kakashi asked, hand in pocket. He started walking again.

"I don't think so," Naruto said. His face scrunched up. "They don't feel like they're armed or anything. And they're walking weird."

Kakashi hummed. "Interesting. I suppose we'll be finding out what they want sooner rather than later."

"Yeah," Naruto said. "They're almost… here."

Three white-cloaked figures dropped down into the empty street from the rooftops. Kakashi stopped, and when it was obvious Naruto wasn't planning to as well, he stuck out his arm and let the boy crash into it.

One of the cloaked shinobi coughed and lowered his hood, letting it bunch around his shoulders. A faded brown ox mask covered his face. "Kakashi Hatake."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "That's what they call me, yes." He looked the man up, then down. "So you're ANBU, then?"

"Hokage's Guard," the ninja confirmed. "I'm here to escort you to Lady Hokage's quarters. It's urgent, sir."

Naruto bristled at his side.

"I suppose I don't have much of a choice in the matter," Kakashi said. "But that's assuming I'm not worried about Lady Tsunade, which I certainly am."

The man straightened. "Sir, it would be best if we continued this conversation in private."

Kakashi let out a breath through his nose. "Alright," he said. He turned, looked down at Naruto's bandaged face. It was twisted in a knot; he was trying hard not to speak out of turn.

"Is it okay if my charming student comes along, too?" Kakashi asked, nudging his head in Naruto's direction.

Naruto perked up, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. "Sensei?"

"I don't see why not," the ANBU answered. "Please, just come quickly. We may not have much time."

When Naruto's hand reached out and gripped daggers into his forearm, Kakashi didn't mind.

"So I don't have to worry about running into stuff," Naruto said. His forced smile, hidden under gauze and doubt and a sea of cloudy, murky feelings, said something else.

* * *

"Where are you taking us?" Naruto asked, twisting his head from side to side, running a calloused hand over the rough edges of the stone tunnel. Their ANBU escort held a torch out, lighting the staircase underneath them as they sank further and further into the mountainside below the Hokage Monument.

Kakashi hummed, reading his novel by the torch's glow. "Somewhere special, I'm assuming."

"Correct," the ANBU said. "Lady Hokage was transferred here when it was determined her condition was stable."

Naruto perked up. "Stable?" he asked, voice hopeful.

Kakashi stayed silent.

The stairwell ended, and the cave opened up into a large tunnel, large enough across for Kakashi to stretch out across three times over. The roof was lined with electrical tubing, and gloomy yellow lamps hung on thin metal wires every five to six feet.

The tunnel shook, and the lights flickered. Loose dust drifted down on their heads from the roof.

"What was that?" Kakashi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Controlled detonation," the ANBU said. "The civilian contractors were authorized to use mining explosives to clear debris and dig foundations. It helps speed up the rebuilding process."

Naruto frowned. "Why can't ninja do it? With, like, Earth Style or something?"

"It will be explained shortly," the ANBU said, and fell quiet again.

"We're short-staffed, aren't we?" Kakashi said, more as a statement than a question, and the ANBU's continued silence was all the answer he needed.

"Where are we?" Naruto muttered. "It's cold."

"Underground," Kakashi said. They turned a corner; more lights came on in front of them. He steered Naruto around the bend in the rock, and the blond took a few moments to grapple at the walls to reorient himself. "Probably outside the inner walls by now."

They kept walking. The tunnel widened. Large concrete pillars began to sprout up along the walls, holding the heavy weight of the ceiling in place. The marred stone tunnel made way for smooth, synthetic walls; doors, solid metal and locked up tight, split them down the middle every fifteen meters.

"I've never seen this place before," Kakashi said. "Who built it?"

"The missing-nin Orochimaru," the ANBU relied, and Kakashi mentally kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. "Although now it's used for state affairs." The tunnel stretched off into the distance, but he stopped between two reinforced doorways.

"Sir," he said to Kakashi, gesturing at the entrance. "They're waiting for you."

"They?" Kakashi asked, and opened the door.

* * *

Konan gasped a hasty breath, bent over her knee, kneeling in the ankle-high water outside the north end of the Hidden Rain. She pushed herself up again, turned, and flicked a kunai into her wrist.

The water behind her exploded.

She turned, twisting on her feet, and pointed the kunai towards the cloud of steam and vapor.

"Clever," a voice called. "Lining the surface of the water with mines. I can't materialize without setting them off."

Konan stayed silent. The sky, brown and grey and twisting over itself like the current of an ocean, finally broke above them. The rain hissed against the surface of the water, wisping up and into the air in waves of mist.

"You know," Madara continued, "I've always wondered how your paper stayed dry in all this rain." A pause. "It seems so counterintuitive. Water and origami don't match."

She took a hesitant step forward, arm outstretched, and looked over her shoulder.

"I have to admit that it's rather metaphorical, though. Of all the places for a shinobi with talents such as yourself to end up, and you land here." Madara tutted. "A shame."

"I make due," Konan said. Her voice cut the air thinner than the blade she carried ever could.

"I see that," Madara said. "But why bother staying here? Everything you cared about is gone. This place is nothing but an open grave."

"Why do you care?" Konan said.

Another explosion erupted to her right.

"Why shouldn't I care?" Madara said. "I like to think of myself as a nice person. Nice people care about their friends."

"We're not friends." The rain came down harder. Konan let the water drip down her hair and past her face, unmoved.

"Hmm," Madara said. "Perhaps not. Acquaintances, for sure. Coworkers. People with the same goals and aspirations in mind."

"What makes you so sure?"

Another explosion; this time, far closer. It rattled the earth and shook the sky. The cloud of smoke, dizzying and bright in the darkness, reflected the red-orange neon glow from the city behind them. It was silent.

Konan took the moment to wipe a strand of soaked hair from her eye.

"All you have to do is give me what I want," Madara said. His voice came from everywhere and nowhere. "And then I'll leave you be. You'll be a free agent."

He was lying. They both knew it.

Konan twisted again. Her Akatsuki robes pulled at her skin as she turned. They were still burned and marred from the battle of the Leaf Village; she felt the rainwater seep through the gashes in the fabric and soak her skin.

"An enticing offer," she said. Lightning struck half a mile away.

They moved at the same moment. Konan flashed a hand seal by the light of the sky, and the ground rumbled alongside the thunder. Madara streaked an inferno across the water's surface, lighting paper bomb after paper bomb with each near-transparent footstep.

His hand reached out towards Konan's throat, fingers long and narrow and whiter than clouded ice. She saw the reflection of her fingers in the polish of his ring.

He leaped forward, red eye blazing, and the earth opened up beneath him.

Konan smirked.

"Boom," she said.

* * *

Even though he couldn't see anymore, there was still something telltale about a hospital room that Naruto could sniff out a mile away, even halfway through a mountain.

And, like all hospital rooms he found himself in, Sakura was there too.

"Naruto." A sigh. "There you are."

At least this time he knew she wasn't there for him.

"Sakura," Kakashi said. Naruto could sense the warning tone in his voice.

"It's okay, Kakashi-sensei," he murmured. The stiff leather seat underneath him felt like stone. Despite the circumstances, it was he who felt guilty.

Naruto looked up towards Sakura's voice. "I'm sorry for scaring you," he offered.

The next thing he knew, the air in his lungs was being shoved up his windpipe like toothpaste from the bottom of an unruly tube.

"You idiot," Sakura muttered into his hair, and pulled back. She didn't have to say anything else.

They sat in silence for what felt like three lifetimes, Kakashi flipping through the pages in his book like a cattle herder cracking a whip, and Sakura fiddling with the dials on the beeping machines at the far wall, and Naruto boring a blank hole into the carpet at his feet. At least, he thought it was carpet. He was reaching down to feel it with his fingertips when the metal latch on the door swung open.

The pressure in the room changed. Naruto swore he could feel the heat and energy rush out into the hallway, and when the door slammed shut behind whoever entered, he knew it wouldn't be coming back in.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to get the paperwork squared away as quickly as possible," came a weathered voice from above firm footsteps. "There's very little time, so we must act quickly. Who knows what the other villages have in store for us if we aren't back on our feet sooner rather than later."

The clamor of wooden sandals stopped like a pair of small explosions in front of them. "What are these two doing here?"

Kakashi sighed. "Lady Koharu. You can't fault the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage for wanting to be at her master's side in a time like this."

"Fair enough," the consul hummed. Naruto felt the finger jabbed in his direction, even if it wasn't really there. "And him?"

"He's here with me as a show of solidarity for our precious teammate," Kakashi said. "Also, he saved the village. So there's that."

Koharu sniffed. Naruto had a hard time remembering what the woman looked like, but her general attitude was doing a decent job filling in the blanks. "That's true," she said after a moment. At least she had the nerve to sound thankful. "I just wish that everyone could have been so lucky."

Naruto's gut curdled.

"We all do," Kakashi said.

Koharu turned in place and took careful steps across the room. "How is she?" she asked, voice quiet.

"Well…" Sakura took a breath. "I can't say for sure. Shizune is still tending to the wounded on the surface, and she'll have a better idea than I will."

"Sakura," Kakashi said. "Don't doubt yourself."

A pause. "Yes, sensei," she said. She cleared her throat. "Well, Lady Koharu, all things considered, she's lucky to be alive. Chakra exhaustion is not something most people can make it through."

"Hmm, well," Koharu said, "the Fifth Hokage has proven time and time again that she's not like most people."

Naruto couldn't be sure, but he felt like she may have been smiling.

"She's comatose right now," Sakura said. "There's not much we can do but keep her comfortable and give her time."

Koharu hummed. "I agree. Unfortunately, in the wide world of intervillage politics, time isn't something to be taken for granted." She clicked her tongue. "And that's why we need to sort things out now, Kakashi. I can't leave this village leaderless for much longer before the power structure starts to fall apart."

"It's not quite that dire," Kakashi said. "The village can be without a Hokage for a few weeks."

Sakura's silence was telling enough.

"I have a feeling it might be longer than that," Koharu confirmed, taking a deep breath. "Besides, it's already been approved. The Daimyo seemed more than happy with our choice."

"Did he, now," Kakashi said, voice sweet. "Well, tell him that I'm flattered. But as long as Lady Hokage has a chance, I'll leave my faith and trust in the rest of the village to think for itself." He flipped a page in his book. "That _is_ , after all, why we have a chain of command."

"You can't outrun the Hokage hat forever, boy," Koharu said with a snort.

Naruto lurched in his seat. "Sensei?" he blurted out.

"Naruto?" Kakashi said.

"You're… Hokage? What?"

He sniffed. "Not if I can help it."

Naruto smirked.

"Well, in case you change your mind, I'll be down the hall," Koharu said. "I can't force anything, but just know there are other more… _willing_ candidates that are more than eager to take your place."

"I'll keep that under consideration," Kakashi said.

A beat. "Of course you will," Koharu said, and Naruto could hear her rolling her eyes. "Well, I'm off. I have a feeling a lot more is going to need to be done than just putting up a few roofs."

"Thank you, Lady Koharu," Sakura said.

"Thank _you_ , child." The door swung open. "Without you, this conversation would have been a lot more one-sided."

* * *

"Before you even say anything," Sakura said as they made their way back up through the labyrinthian maze of tunnels and staircases towards the surface, "don't blame yourself. It's not your fault."

Naruto blanched. "I wasn't gonna say it!"

"You were thinking it! I could tell just by looking at you!"

"Children," Kakashi yawned.

"I'm serious," Sakura said, jabbing a finger into Naruto's shoulder. "I hear one word about how you didn't do enough this week and you won't need to worry about finding a new apartment for a while." A pause. "Because you'll be in the medic tent for a long time," she clarified, once it was clear Naruto wasn't connecting the dots.

She turned and kept walking, judging from the sound of the footsteps, and Naruto kept pace behind her. The rumble of construction sounds whispered into existence in front of them, and before long, the cool embrace of an early Fire Country fall welcomed them back to the surface.

"I have some reading to catch up on," Kakashi said. "I trust you two can make it back to the hospital tent yourselves?"

"Of course, sensei," Sakura said.

Naruto grinned. "With my eyes closed."

"I can't tell if that was a bad joke or if you're really that oblivious sometimes," Sakura said, but Kakashi was already gone.

They walked through the village streets, Sakura fussing over every footstep Naruto took. "Watch out," she said, taking great care to tug him around an active construction site by the collar. "Don't wander off."

"Sakura," Naruto whined. "I'm not a baby. I've been getting around fine with Kakashi since…"

His mouth dried up.

Sakura sighed, stopping mid step in the middle of the dusty road. "Hey," she said. "Don't talk about it. We're almost back to the tent anyways; then you can get some rest. You've had a long day."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah," he said. "We all have."

* * *

"Naruto!"

Shizune's voice was, much to Naruto's own surprise, a welcome presence after such an emotional day. He let her pull him into a tight hug, let her whisper unnecessary apologies into his ear, let her dote over him like an academy child during his yearly physical.

Deep down, he knew she was doing it to distract herself. He knew this because he was letting her do it, unchallenged, for the same reason.

"Shizune," Sakura said, after the woman insisted on pulling out a stethoscope ' _just to be sure_ '. "He's fine. He just needs rest."

A sigh. Shizune sank onto the cot next to him. "I know."

Sakura clicked her tongue. "So do you, ma'am."

Shizune huffed a breathless laugh. "It's funny, hearing those words come out of your mouth. You really are coming into your own; you know that, right?"

She reached over and patted Naruto's knee. "You too. I've never been so proud of you before in my life. As far as I'm concerned, you're already this village's Hokage. Or, to be honest, something even better."

Naruto's heart twisted over itself. "Thanks," he said, and meant it.

"That reminds me," Sakura sighed, pulling a chair across the grassy earth floor of the medic tent and propping it up in front of them. "They're started trying to strong-arm Kakashi-sensei."

Shizune was silent for a moment. "It was only a matter of time," she hummed, taking care with each word. "I'm not surprised, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed in Koharu and the others."

"They don't have much of a choice," Sakura said. "It's either this, or weakness in the eyes of the other villages."

"Why?"

Naruto felt Shizune turn on the cot and look at him. "Naruto?"

"Why should the other villages care?" he repeated, frowning. "The same thing is gonna happen to them, too. At some point." He scowled. "Isn't that the point of the Akatsuki?"

"I thought the point of the Akatsuki was to collect all the tailed beasts," Sakura said.

"No, no," Shizune said. Naruto could tell she was frowning. "He's right."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, think about it," Shizune said. "Why else would they be hunting down all the jinchuuriki? They have something planned for the tailed beasts, and it can't possibly be good."

"They're going to destroy the villages," Naruto said, huffing. "Well, the rest of the villages."

"Naruto," Shizune said. She patted his shoulder. "The Leaf Village isn't destroyed. A community is built by its people, not by its surroundings. We'll survive. We _are_ surviving."

"Not all of us," Naruto said. He sank off the cot and onto his feet. "I'm going for a walk."

"Naruto, you need rest," Sakura said. She reached out and grabbed him by the upper arm before he could make his way towards the tent's entrance. "Please. Go get some sleep."

"Trust me, Sakura," he said, shaking his head. He was so _tired_. "This'll help."

The cot jostled, and Shizune was making her way across the tent towards the other side. "I'm going to try and work on a few small things," she said. "I'm sorry for being a bother."

"Wait, Shizune," Naruto said, turning and taking a step towards her. "Um… thank you. For everything. I mean it."

"You're welcome, Naruto," she said, and folded herself through the flap in the tent opposite.

"Come on," Sakura said. Fabric rustled, and Naruto felt the cool night air on his skin. "We're going for a walk, aren't we?"

* * *

"I know what she's doing," Sakura said, as they lapped the village for a third time. "This is how she copes." She took a breath. "She knows she can't do anything about Lady Tsunade, so she tries to micromanage something that she _can_ do something about."

"She's a great friend," Naruto agreed, smiling. He had a sneaking suspicion that Sakura wasn't only talking about Shizune.

"I just… worry, is all," Sakura continued. The quiet, crisp crunch of gravel under their sandals made way for the soft whisper of wet fall leaves.

A feeling of anxiety bubbled up in Naruto's gut. "Yeah," he said. "Me too."

Silence. "You're awfully quiet tonight," Sakura finally said.

"I'm just thinking."

Sakura snorted. "Well that's a terrifying thought."

Naruto grinned. "Heh, yeah. A lot's gone on the past few days. I think I'm just… slowly trying to process it all, y'know?"

"Naruto," Sakura said, stopping, "these past few days have been some of the hardest this village has ever had to deal with. On top of all of that, there's the matter of Tsunade, and what's left of the Akatsuki, and…"

 _Jiraiya_. The words were on her tongue, but Sakura managed to reign them in before they slipped out.

"Sakura, you don't have to baby me," Naruto repeated. He turned towards her and opened his eyes.

She heaved a sharp breath and took a step back. "God," she muttered. "Sorry. I just… forget that your eyes are… well…"

Naruto nodded, frowning. The feeling in his gut grew. "Yeah," he said, and closed his eyes again. "Me too."

* * *

The world was an orchestra of fire, and Konan was its conductor.

She had timed it down to the last millisecond. Each bomb blast, each careful placement, crafted by clones over the course of a year.

The sky burned. The sea bubbled. The air, thick with smoke and hazy from the heat, twisted between them.

"You can't keep this up forever!" Madara roared.

Konan stood like a marbled statue, eyes narrowed. Ten minutes. Six hundred billion tags. One two microsecond-long burst per bomb; an overlap ratio of one point four. The math was done. Everything was in place. All that was left was to wait, and Konan was far too good at that.

The clock in her head tick, tick, ticked down. The sky was orange and marbled with smoky clouds. The earth shook; behind her, she felt the rumble and shake of the Hidden Rain moaning under the strain.

"I'm going to find them!" Madara screamed from the blast. "And I will use them to burn you alive!"

The eyes. Two of them. Silver-purple. Doujutsu; first class.

She bit her lip. ' _Focus_.'

How many rings did the Rinnegan have?

Was it four? Five?

 _'Six hundred billion paper bombs. Ten minutes. One second equals half a billion tags, plus spares in case of misfire.'_

She remembered Nagato's face like nothing else; beautiful yet frail, like lilies on the surface of a pond. She remembered Nagato and Yahiko and herself, sitting around a kitchen table with glasses of warm tea in their hands, smiles on their faces and eyes full of hope.

But she couldn't remember Nagato's eyes; what they _looked_ like.

 _'Five minutes minimum. Ten minutes for maximum certainty of elimination. No room for error.'_

Her control slipped; she felt it like a droplet of water. A rift in her timing formed, and the blasts desynchronized. The orchestra crumbled.

Madara materialized, but it was only for a moment. She felt it in the air; a disturbance of chakra so faint that had she not been rooted in one place for so long, she would have missed it entirely. But there he was, eye wide and victorious.

Konan snarled.

To hell with timing. To hell with the math. To hell with numbers and calculations and careful planning. Konan had nothing left to lose.

She directed them all to him at once - one last hurrah. A single explosion, unfocused and deadly in its inaccuracy. Madara reared forward. A blade slipped from the sleeve in his coat.

Konan snapped her fingers, and the world went white.

* * *

Half a country away, Naruto and Sakura froze mid-step.

"Did you feel that?" Naruto asked.

"Unfortunately," Sakura muttered. "What could it have been?"

* * *

White faded to black, and black faded to grey.

She saw her hand, raised it above her face, and marveled at the way her skin collected the rain and held it there.

Her vision swam with strange shapes and muted colors, and before she fell unconscious, blood running down her chin, she saw Nagato's eyes again, framed by whiskers and just as hopeful.

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 **Author's Note(s):** I live!

I was going to apologize for the lack of updates, but considering the ridiculous whirlwind my life has been the past six months or so, I'm honestly surprised I managed to get this done at all. Also, it's really tacky when authors swear up and down to be better about their schedules and then just, like, never do. My motto with this fic is that it will update when it updates. I really can't promise more than that.

The Blonding rewrite is coming along - but considering that's completely a labor of love, I haven't given myself a time limit and don't anticipate finishing anytime soon. Don't worry, though; as I get further along, there'll be far less complete rewriting and more simple editing. Soon(ish)!

Oh, also - look for this fic on my AO3 account soon! I honestly exist primarily over there nowadays, so if you want to read more of what I've been writing (which are mostly oneshots, to be fair), that's where to find me. Same username and all that jazz.

Thanks for reading, guys. I appreciate your patience.  
-Endo

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 **Uploaded on** : 5 Nov 2017  
 **Official betas for this chapter:** N/a  
 **Final word count:** 4780 words


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